The 'Miracle Man of the Pacific' - the fisherman who claimed he survived on turtle blood, raw fish and seagull flesh as he drifted helplessly for more than a year returned to civilization today to mounting questions over his ordeal.

Stumbling
ashore today at a dock in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, Jose Salvador Alvarenga managed a smile before
telling MailOnline: 'I'm alive - I'm alive and I can't believe it.'

When asked about his ordeal he simply replied: 'I cannot remember much about my
journey. It has all gone into one thought - the sea, the sea.'

Alive!
The first picture of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, still with his tangled hair and scraggy
beard, as he arrives in Marujo, in the Marshall Islands after 14 months
adrift at sea. He looked plumper than expected - but doctors say his
body could be swollen from the conditions he endured

Desperate: Jose had drifted in his 24ft boat for 14 months across 8,000
miles of treacherous seas, finally dragging himself ashore, his skin
scorched by the unforgiving sun, his shorts in tatters decayed by the
sea salt

I
made it: Jose gives the thumbs up for MailOnline from his hospital bed.
He is looking forward to calling his family, but says he has forgotten
his telephone number and what his hometown is called

Jose said he desperately wanted to
phone his family - his wife and his 10-year-old daughter - in El
Salvador but he cannot remember the name of the village or a phone
number. 'I have forgotten many things,' he told MailOnline.

Jose
says he has even forgotten exactly how old he is. He 'believes' he is about 36
to 38, even though his ordeal has made him appear much older.

JOSE ALVARENGA'S STORY: FACT OR FICTION? THEORIES DEBUNKED

Why was he looking so well fed? Doctors say this could be caused by edema, a swelling brought on by too much sun and salt.

Could his 24ft fishing boat really have reached the Marshall Islands in 14 months from his starting point in Mexico, 8000 miles away? Oceanography Erik van Sebille of Sydney said normally it would take 18 months to two years, but 13 months is still possible depending on winds and currents.

Is it easy to catch seagulls and fish with the bare hands? Stealth and speed is of the essence - small fish can be scooped up from the sides of boats and seagulls frequently land on boats, although catching one is not easy.

Is it possible to lose memory during a long ordeal such as Alvarenga's? Doctors say everyone is different and they agree that the fishermen appears to slip in and out of lucidness.

Can someone survive by drinking their own urine? It is possible - but only for a short time. Prolonged use after more than several days, say doctors, can put back into the body dangerous waste products that can bring about kidney failure.

'He
is here, with us, but he isn't here with us,' an interpreter who has
spoken to Jose told MailOnline. 'He is still disorientated, there is no
doubt about that.'

Questions have started to mount over his 'incredible' story that if true makes his one of the most amazing in maritime history.

Gee Bing, the acting secretary of foreign affairs for the Marshall
Islands, said he was somewhat skeptical of Jose's account after
meeting with him Monday.

Bing said the
man had no identification with him and other details of his story
remained sketchy, including the exact location of his departure from
Mexico.

'It
does sound like an incredible story and I'm not sure if I believe his
story,' Bing said. 'When we saw him, he was not really thin compared to
other survivors in the past. I may have some doubts. Once we start
communicating with where he's from, we'll be able to find out more
information.'

However, doctors said that he may need a long rest to recover his memory more fully.

He claims his 24ft boat had drifted helplessly across 8,000 miles
of treacherous seas, remarkably staying upright in storms, sitting idly
in calm conditions after he and a teenage shark fisherman endured the most
soul-destroying of conditions after their engine broke down on December 21, 2012.

Despite
their attempts to attract other vessels, they continued to drift
further out to sea. He watched his teenage fishing companion, he knew only as Ezekiel, aged
between 15 and 18, slowly die after four weeks under the relentless sun, unable to keep
down and digest the raw food they were forced to eat.

He has told doctors that he was forced to roll the body of his young companion over the side of the boat, but he stopped short of going into the details.

'No, no,' he said, when an interpreter for MailOnline asked him about that terrible moment. He would only say: 'I'm sad for him'.

Telling his story: Experts are trying to analyze the clues in his case to see how it was possible that he lasted for as long as he did

Miraculous: He credits God for helping keep him alive on the 14-month journey

Jose continued his own
struggle for survival that was to endure for week after week, month
after tortuous month with only a knife and a small covering to shield
him from the sun.

He contemplated suicide, 'but I couldn't do that,' he said. 'I prayed instead. I believed that God would protect me.

He said he grabbed turtles to drink their blood when
there was no rain water, swallowed down his own urine, snatched
seagulls to eat their flesh and hooked fish and ate them raw - to keep a tenuous hold on life.

He said: 'I thank God and I thank the birds I caught to eat. I caught fish and at times I drank my own urine to have liquid.

'Every
day was the same, just the sea, the sea. I saw nothing more. The sea
and my boat. I had no idea of time, but I know that it was December 21,
2012, when we left. The days at sea and the nights...they were all one
after a while.

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'I lived on fish that were easy to catch and once I caught a small shark. I know sharks. I used to catch them all the time.'

'I did not know about the ocean. I always fished off the coast of Mexico and I didn't know what was out there in the big sea - but that is where I was taken to by God,' he told the Mail as he rested in a chair at the hospital.

'Every day was the same, just the sea, the sea. I saw nothing more. The sea and my boat.' How had he kept his sanity? 'When you need to eat, when you need to drink, you keep your mind alive. And you pray. I prayed to God all the time. I prayed to stay alive.

'I thought of my wife and daughter all the time and knew they were missing me, but what could I do?'

He eventually hit land - literally - when he ran onto a reef near Ebon atoll. He had enough strength to swim ashore and later shocked two women with his unkempt appearance and tattered shorts.

Skeptical: His spotty memory does not help investigators who are looking to patch the story together

Disoriented: Doctors said that his psychological battle will be harder than his physical one

Hope:
Jose said that thoughts of his family kept him alive. He said: 'I know
they would have been worried about me, thinking that I was dead. Yes, I
know I am so lucky to be here, alive'

Lost soul: Jose revealed that his companion died after just four weeks. He was only aged between 15 and 18

Sitting in a chair in the Majuro hospital, where local people were calling throughout the day to offer him gifts of food - which the hospital had to turn away as doctors remained concerned that he should be on a strict, light diet - he appeared outwardly healthy.

Asked how he had kept his sanity, he said: 'When you need to eat, when you need to drink, you keep your mind alive. And you pray. I prayed to God all the time. I prayed to stay alive.'

He said thoughts of his family gave him added resolve. 'I thought about
them all the time,' he told MailOnline. 'I think that by now they think
that I am dead. So I want to go home and show them that I am alive. I
thank God that I am here.'

The currents continued to pull him westwards - and it was by luck that he hit land, the most southerly atoll in the Marshall Islands.

If he had missed that landfall, his boat would possibly have drifted on for hundreds of miles more - and he doubts whether he would have survived that long.

'My boat hit, and I swam ashore. I had the strength to do that.'

When he stumbled ashore he slept under the coconut trees, unaware that he was close to a village.

Then he saw two women staring at him and shouting at the stranger who had landed on their territory in ragged shorts, unkempt hair and a bushy beard.

Suffering: The fisherman had to drink his own urine and the blood of turtles to stay hydrated

Miraculous
survival: Jose Ivan, claims to have set off from Mexico for El Salvador
in December 2012 but ended up traveling more than 8,000 miles to the
Ebon Atoll

Miraculous survival: He was discovered by locals when he washed up on the Ebon Atoll, pictured, in the Pacific Ocean after 16 months stranded at sea

He assured them he was no threat and
accepted a 'lift' on another boat by their menfolk to the largest
village on the Ebon Atoll.

They stared in astonishment at the
stranger, whose skin was burned dry by the sun and the sea spray - but
typical of their generosity they put him into one of their own small
boats and carried him to their main village where they clothed and fed
him and gave him fresh water.

A
Norwegan anthropology student, Ola Fieldstad, who was in the area
managed to learn a little of his extraordinary story through sign
language and a series of drawings.

Then the local Mayor put a call through on the atoll's only phone to alert the authorities in Majuro about the castaway.

Astonishingly,
the man who was in the care of the village for several days before he
was brought to Majuro today, bore a striking resemblance to Tom Hanks'
character in the movie Castaway, with his brown beard and tangled hair.

Thinking happy thoughts: He reportedly prayed during the time that he was conscious and thought of his wife and daughter as much as he could

Elements
of Jose's story raced around the world...he had been at sea, said first
reports, for 16 months; his companion had died after four months and
Jose was extremely emaciated.

But
Jose appears in much better health than expected from such an ordeal.
Doctors said, however, that his body was bloated from the conditions he
had suffered, possibly edema - a condition in which the body swells as a result of exposure to too much sunlight - and salt.

His blood
pressure was low and he walked cautiously, but it was more his mental
condition than his physical appearance that medics on the main island
suggested would be his greatest challenge in coming days.

He
is expected to suffer the ongoing effects of prolonged exposure, fear
of death, starvation and lack of water. Watching his teenage companion
die would have added to his ordeal - and that was before the real terror
began as he drifted for more than a year across the ocean.

Marshall
Islands immigration chief Damien Jacklick said: 'With the help of the
US ambassador, we were able to obtain information on his family members
in El Salvador and the United States. We hope this information will help
us track down his family.'

He would, said doctors, need complete
rest while authorities in El Salvador, where his family live, make
arrangements for him to be flown home to his wife and daughter.

Frail:
A team of doctors were on hand to help Jose leave the naval vessel and
transport him to a hospital. His blood pressure is a little low, but
otherwise seemed to be in good health considering what he'd
endured

Speck
of land: One of the small islands of Ebon atoll, which shows how little
land separates the Pacific Ocean from the inner lagoon

Meanwhile,
doctors said the fact that he was still alive after such a long period
at sea, snatching what liquid and solid foods he could, was testament to
his original good physical condition.

A human can live for about three weeks without food but only three to five days without liquids.

Turtle
blood is rich in iron and proteins, providing the same sort of
nutrition found in steak and eggs, but it is still a poor substitute for
rainwater. He might also have consumed the turtles' eyes, for they are
filled with fluid.

Jose's constitution undoubtedly also ensured his survival.

A local Marshallese woman said that
from her experience of other people who had died in remote locations it
was because they had not been able to consume raw food - they kept
vomiting it up - and this is believed to be how the other fisherman with Jose had
died.

A 24ft boat
provides little room for exercise, even if a dehydrated and starving man
has the strength to do any, so when he finally stumbled ashore he found
it difficult to stand, complaining of pain in his knees.

Then,
revealing that he had not lost his sense of humour, he added: 'If
someone gets me home, I'm sure my boss will pay' - a reference to his
employers, the Camoronera Dela Costa fishing company, in Tapachula, on
the Guatemala border.

A boy on Ebon atoll where the Mexican drifter came ashore helps to prepare a meal of fish

Erik
van Sebille, a Sydney-based oceanographer at the University of New South
Wales, said there was a good chance a boat drifting off Mexico's west
coast would eventually be carried by currents to the Marshall Islands.
He said such a journey would typically take 18 months to two years
depending on the winds and currents, although 13 months was possible.

'The
way that the currents in the Pacific work is that there is a very
strong westerly current just north of the equator and that basically
drives you directly from Mexico all the way toward Indonesia and in the
path, you go right over the Marshall Islands,' he said.

Jose's survival would be one of the greatest ever. Other
castaways have died after much shorter times in open waters, among them
two Panamanian fishermen who, in 2012, succumbed to heat stroke and
dehydration after 28 days.

Back
in 2006, three Mexicans, also adrift near the Marshall Islands,
survived on fish, birds and rainwater for nine months, saying later that
their mental health was sustained by a copy of the Bible.